Suresh Kumar alias Mithu Kumar, a resident of Fazilka in Punjab is at present on two-day police remand for cheating RK Taneja, a retired IAS officer of Haryana cadre living in Sector 7.

Interrogations revealed that Suresh Kumar and his accomplices Suraj, Rahul and Sonu, all from Bihar, cheated people by making phone calls, asking for their account details and withdrawing cash through online transactions.(Representative image )

The cyber cell of Chandigarh police have arrested a man from Fazilka in Punjab for defrauding a retired civil servant of about Rs 49,977. The accused made a phone call to the victim and posed as an official from his bank to access his account details and OTP (verification) number to withdraw the money.

Suresh Kumar alias Mithu Kumar, a resident of Fazilka in Punjab is at present on two-day police remand for cheating RK Taneja, a retired IAS officer of Haryana cadre living in Sector 7.

Interrogations revealed that Suresh Kumar and his accomplices Suraj, Rahul and Sonu, all from Bihar, cheated people by making phone calls, asking for their account details and withdrawing cash through online transactions. He told the police that his accomplices then used to transfer the withdrawn amount to his digital wallet. After deducting his commission Suresh would deposit the cash in their accounts.

The police have procured Suresh’s remand for recovery of his mobile phone and to arrest his accomplices.

The case

Police on October 17 registered a case on Taneja’s complaint that Rs 49,977 had been fraudulently withdrawn from his account. Taneja had received a phone call in July with the caller identifying himself as the employee of the bank he had an account in and asking for his account details to link his Aadhaar card with the bank account.

Suresh had then used the information to generate the OTP which Taneja received on his mobile phone and shared with the caller who then withdrew the money from the account. A case under section 420 (cheating) and relevant sections of IT act was registered.

The arrest

Police discovered that Rs 9,999 from the money withdrawn from Taneja’s account had been deposited in an Ola wallet account in the name of Rama Kumar.

Using details from the mobile phone police traced the sim card to Suresh Kumar of Fazilka who was then arrested.